Protesters block early voting in Thai capital

New York Times

January 26, 2014
Updated: January 26, 2014 9:53pm

BANGKOK — Hundreds of thousands of Thais were blocked from voting Sunday as anti-government demonstrators obstructed polling places in Bangkok and southern Thailand in a campaign to suspend democracy and replace Parliament with an unelected “people's council.”

In a day of sometimes-tense confrontations between protesters and would-be voters, one protest leader was shot dead by an unknown assailant and 11 people were wounded, according to Bangkok's emergency services. Suthin Tharatin, a leader of one faction of the protesters, was shot as he tried to block a polling place on the outskirts of Bangkok, heightening fears of more widespread violence.

Critics of the protest movement, which is battling to purge the country of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her influential family, called Sunday's shutdown of polling places a major blow to democracy in Thailand and a possible portent of further moves to seize power from the government.

More than 2 million people out of a total electorate of about 48 million were registered for Sunday's advance voting, which was held for those unable to vote in the Feb. 2 general election